A present absentee is a Palestinian who fled or was expelled from his home in Palestine by Jewish or Israeli forces, before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but who remained within the area that became the state of Israel. Present absentees are also referred to as internally displaced Palestinians (IDPs). The term applies to the present absentee's descendants too. In 1950 these were 46,000 of the 156,000 Palestinians in Israel.
Present absentees are not permitted to live in the homes they were expelled from, even if they live in the same area, the property still exists, and they can show that they own it. They are regarded as absent by the Israeli government because they left their homes, even if they did not intend to leave them for more than a few days, and even if they did so involuntarily.
Read more about Present Absentee: Definition, Present Absentees, Present-day, Research On The Internal Refugees
Famous quotes containing the word present:
“If one defends the bourgeois, philistine virtues, one does not defend them merely from the demonism or bohemianism of the artist but from the present bourgeoisie itself.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)